Stolen Moments
by Hickumu
Summary: Sometimes, it felt like they could really only stand one another when they were exhausted. Maybe it was because there was only so much energy you could expend on keeping your guard up, and when you let it fall it became harder to forget that these two people you shared a floor with were the closest things you would ever have to family in the entire universe.


_What in the _hell _even happened to that formatting? Sorry about that, folks. Let me know if this one doesn't stick. _

_What can I say? They can't all be twisted and horrible. Actually, that's what this little bit was born of me thinking - even these three had to have lazy days (or nights, as the case may be) where there was no one for them to kill, right? They had to have quiet, normal moments. And yet, after the lives they were indoctrinated into living...I'm not at all sure they'd know what to do with them._

_But part of what siblings are for is figuring shit out together, right? _

_Anyway. There's significantly less blood and torture than the previous three, but I hope you enjoy anyway._

* * *

><p>Sometimes, it felt like they could really only stand one another when they were exhausted.<p>

It took a lot to exhaust the three of them, of course. Missions could last days at a time, training never ended, and there was always maintenance to be done. Staying awake and alert for days at a time was not only expected, it was a necessity. Staying awake for a week or more was commonplace, especially when none of them wanted to be the first to break before their other two siblings. Besides, they all had things lurking in the dark corners of their subconscious that they tried to hide from, as long as humanly possibly.

Yet there was a strange sort of euphoria that could only be found in total exhaustion. Maybe it was because, at that point, their minds were so fuzzed over and clouded with weariness that the Other's everpresent scrutiny felt a little less stifling. Maybe it was the freedom and the release that came with knowing that you really weren't capable of accomplishing one more damn thing. Maybe it was only because there was only so much energy you could expend on keeping your guard up, and when you let it fall it became harder to forget that these two people you shared a floor with were the closest things you would ever have to family in the entire universe.

It was almost a game, seeing how long they could avoid sleep. Loki proved especially valuable, in that regard. He never seemed to run out of stories, and he had a gift for making them funny, especially when you were almost too tired to see straight. Nebula knew he must make half of them up off the top of his head. No one could live long enough to have done all the things he claimed to, even allowing for some of those things to even happen in the first place. So sometimes, on those rare nights, they would find themselves congregating in the hallway between their three rooms, or out on one of the balconies on their floors. When they did, Loki would talk. He seemed to enjoy being able to go until he ran out of breath rather than being told to shut up, so that was just as well. More to the point, it was the most lively that they ever saw him.

Gamora could cook. You'd never know it to look at her. Oh, she couldn't cook well, but she could still manage something beyond charring whatever was in front of her until it ceased to be raw, which was the combined extent of Nebula and Loki's skills. Apparently, it all stemmed from a mission way back when that had required her to work as a cook in a Kree kitchen for a while, long enough ago that even Nebula didn't remember. But it was amazing, the things that stayed with you. It was especially amazing that sometimes those things were even a little good. It wasn't as though the ability to cook was likely a skill she would ever be called on to use for Thanos' service ever again, so she made use of it for the three of them instead.

Nebula supposed it must make a nice change of pace, though watching her wield a spatula could still be a little disconcerting. You tended to find yourself piercingly aware of the continued presence of your own eyeballs, and rather more grateful for them than usual.

As for Nebula, well…she somehow never managed to contribute much, and knew it. She followed along, of course, because she wanted to avoid sleep for as long as possible as much as either of them. She rolled her eyes at Loki's stories and called out the particularly impossible parts. She ate whatever Gamora put in front of her, and she gave them both a good, solid kick if they seemed to be flagging too early in the night. So in the end, the only thing she really had to offer seemed to be _company_. This was, of course, an entirely worthless thing on every conceivable level, which only made it more baffling that she didn't mind wasting her time giving it and the other two didn't seem to mind receiving it.

So that was how those late nights found them, those rare late nights when they all found themselves unraveling together, safe and at peace in the knowledge that there was nothing further they could do about it. Those late nights found them out under the stars with only their own laughter and Loki's voice to break the endless silence of the void above. Those late nights found them down in the mess hall, Gamora busying herself over the Chitauri's basic rations to make them something more than edible. Those late nights found them striding through the silent halls shoulder-to-shoulder, talking with unashamedly raised voices, safe in the knowledge that anything that could possibly stop them was outside of their control.

None of those moments should have mattered to her, not really. They did, they undeniably did, that wasn't a lie she could tell even to herself, but that didn't change the fact that they shouldn't have.

It wasn't as though those late nights really _meant_ anything. In fact, they should have been occasions to avoid at all costs, given that it encouraged the three of them to exhibit every sign of weakness that they were otherwise under the strictest orders to avoid. Neglecting to adequately care for themselves was at the top of the list, of course. Any damage they sustained could only be sustained in furtherance of Thanos' service. To do otherwise, through accident or neglect, was an offense worthy of dire punishment. Fraternizing unnecessarily with one another was almost as bad, however. Though Thanos liked to play at family, the fact remained that as his children, they were competition to one another first and foremost. They were allies only at his command, and if the situation arose, they would be expected to become enemies at his word as well. They were required to know one another's abilities, that they might best utilize them in furtherance of Thanos' goals, but to get to _know_ one another beyond that would be seen as deliberately and unconscionably weakening themselves.

So those nights should never have happened at all. Not just because they, by rights, shouldn't have been allowed in the slightest. There was also the fact that the Other always kept a watchful eye on their minds and thoughts. At the first sign of these _feelings _and _acts_ in each of them – of Loki waving his arms effusively, of Gamora busily trying to turn their tasteless nutritional paste into something less bland, of Nebula _laughing_ – it could have, should have, dropped them all to their knees in agonizing pain. The other two must have known this as well, but of course they never asked. To ask would be to mention these moments, and to mention them would be to lose them.

Nebula had her own vague ideas as to why they weren't stopped, of course. Maybe Loki was shielding them from sight, perhaps even without entirely thinking about it. Magic was a mysterious thing that they were all only slowly coming to understand. The chance to examine a living vessel for this strange, supermortal force was one of the reasons Thanos not only kept Loki around, but kept him whole. She had, on occasion, seen it come to his defense with a speed that could not possibly have come completely from conscious thought. She had seen him speak with spirits a galaxy away. Nebula could not have said for certain that she would have seen him shielding them with any of her different sights, if he had truly been doing so.

Maybe Thanos was only giving them enough rope to hang themselves with. Maybe, when they were at their most complacent, when they weren't expecting it, he would call in this offense and see them undone for it. Maybe it was meant to be its own, more elaborate form of torture. After all, though they weren't supposed to get attached to one another as anything more than tools, there was no way to stop it happening on some small level. They were three people in the same dire situation, living the same reckless and uncertain life, brought into it as family and really only equals with one another. Yet whatever fond feelings they might have for one another could never be strong enough to counterbalance their obedience to Thanos. He must know this. Of course he would. The Mad Titan had ensured with exquisite care that this would be the case.

So when the day came, as it inevitably would, that those two impulses came into conflict, it would only hurt all the worse to bow their heads in obedience and take their sibling out of the equation.

Nebula's last theory was the most traitorous. It was the very fact that she was allowed to have it at all that left her more certain that it might be the truth of the matter. Maybe Thanos allowed these nights to happen because _he didn't know about them_. Their father's goals ranged across the universe and as far as Death itself. Even for a galactic warlord like the Titan, that was a great deal to keep track of. Why should he waste his precious energy, therefore, or his right-hand advisors' time, keeping an eye on three weapons he had conditioned to obey him utterly?

It wasn't as though he wasn't right to do so, after all. If these really were moments that they were free of Thanos' gaze, then look how they spent that freedom. They frittered it away on stolen moments that wouldn't mean a damn when they were called to serve once more.

They spent it pretending to be something they weren't, something they could never be. They spent those scant few hours pretending to be normal, pretending to be a family, pretending that they could ever actually have skills that weren't useful to Thanos, thoughts of another life. When it came right down to it, they spent those hours in a dream. Maybe even an actual dream, given that it always ended with the two of three of them waking up in their own beds after collapsing there in exhausted heaps at the end of it all.

They didn't have many pleasant dreams, however. It probably said something about all of them that the only way they ever could was if they all came together to prop one another up a little longer. And maybe it was stupid, selfish, _useless_, but the chance to be unreservedly happy and at peace for a few hours was something Nebula could never turn away from.

After all, when the time came for them both to die, she would rather have these nights to remember them by.

"Can't sleep either?" Gamora asked without looking up, as Nebula stepped outside to join her brother and sister.

"…and as the fool is sitting there, devouring an entire cow, I turn to the giant and…oh. Nebula." Loki looked up and over Gamora's head, from his usual perch on the balcony railing. She thought she saw him smile, but it might have been a trick of the starlight. "Good evening. Your timing is impeccable as always. Gamora and I were about to go searching for something to tide us over for the night."

"You can come," Gamora added. She glanced over her shoulder at her sister, and a mere trick of the starlight couldn't ever account for how strange she looked when she was smiling in something other than glee at the prospect of eviscerating someone. "If you want."

She shouldn't. She should just go back to bed and try to suffer through the dreams. She should tell them both off for not doing the same, and maybe through her obedience she would claw her way a few inches higher up in Thanos' esteem.

The voice telling her to do all of this was whispering in the back of Nebula's thoughts. It came in her own voice. She didn't need the Other telling her all of this, after all this time.

Just this once, however, Nebula ignored that voice. She was too damn tired to care.

"I guess I've got time," was all she said aloud, moving to join Loki on the railing. "But finish up first. What's this about a cow?"


End file.
